Meeting with Minister over health issues

Published:08:00Saturday 13 June 2015

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Highlands and Islands Labour MSP, Rhoda Grant, who is Scottish Labour’s Shadow Minister for Health Inequalities and Sport, met with the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Shona Robison, last week to discuss a number of Western Isles health issues.

Speaking after Wednesday’s meeting, Mrs Grant said “I asked for an update on where things stand with the funding for the alterations on Bethesda following the very generous donation which was given recently. The Minister confirmed again that the Scottish Government will match the donation and undertook to send me an update on where things stand presently with progress on this. She also agreed to look at the wider issue of the funding of Crossroads.

Mrs Grant continued: “It is crucial that both of these issues are addressed as soon as is practicably possible to alleviate the problem of bed blocking which has been experienced in Stornoway of late. People need to be assured that there is sufficient continuing care beds available and that community care is adequately funded too.

Mrs Grant said “I raised a number of other health related issues including the issue of out-of-hours care in Harris. I am told a review is being carried out on out-of-hours which will include looking at multi discipline teams and generalist out-of-hours nursing. I stressed that palliative care had to be included in this review too.”